New York Federal Scroll Back Arm Chair (ca. 1820)

The Completed Chair

A recent restoration project was an arm chair made in New York City circa 1820. This chair was made during the Federal period of American furniture manufacturing which is part of the larger Neoclassical period. This style of chair is known as a scroll back chair and is closely related to the Klismos chair, both taking design elements from classical Greek furniture forms. This particular chair was most likely made by a Scottish Cabinetmaker who immigrated to New York some time in the early 19th century. According to the current owner, the chair was owned by Andrew Mitchell, another Scottish immigrant. The current owner, Mr. Andrew Trotter, provided the following information about Mr. Mitchell:

"This chair is known in my family as the “Mitchell chair,” after Andrew Mitchell (1753-1836), a prominent merchant in New York City. It was passed down in my family along with Mitchell's Bible and other family documents. Andrew Mitchell was born in Gallowayshire, Scotland, and emigrated to New York in his 20s, according to family and official records. In the American War of Independence, he was a Loyalist and served in a militia unit defending the King. He witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill and later was captured and imprisoned for six months on Long Island, N.Y., but was released and made his way to British-controlled New York."

Mr. Trotter also provided this detail photo from the front cover of Mitchell's Bible:

 

In researching this chair, I came across a book entitled "Scottish Cabinetmakers in Federal New York" by Mary Ann Apicella. In this book, Ms. Apicella details the wave of Scottish immigrant cabinetmakers who landed on the shores of New York City bringing with them their vernacular interpretations on Neoclassical furniture forms. Once here, these Scottish design elements were quickly incorporated into Federal New York furniture making and the result was a distinguishable sub form of Federal Furniture. Ms. Apicella uses the book to record this history as well as compare Scottish and American furniture forms to help identify and characterize the furniture made by these immigrants.

In the section of her book that deals with chairs, Ms. Apicella points out certain characteristics that were seen on these New York scroll back chairs that point towards their being made by Scottish hands. Most notably among these were the use of a carved central splat. The central splat which sits mid-way up the back of the chair and spans the space between the rear posts, was carved in a variety of motifs, including eagles, cornicopias, and lyres. Often, these chairs were also seen with a carved splat without a main motif, as is the case with the Mitchell chair. Ms. Apicella points out that this was a characteristic that is exclusive to Scottish design. English chairs often had a central carved splat of a twisted rope or often would use Boulle work as ornamentation. For an example of Boulle work, You can view my earlier post on a Regency Sofa here:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2013/01/regency-rosewood-and-beech-sofa-ca1820.html

Another design element that Ms. Apicella points out as  being Scottish is the way the crest rail is framed with beading. Inside of the beaded frame is a piece of crotch Mahogany veneer. Mr. Mitchell's chair exibits this feature as well. So why is this not a Scottish chair?

The design element I spoke of above evolved from Scottish design elements and particularly the carving of the central splat, while evolving from Scottish design ideas, is more closely related to that of chairs made in New York by Scottish immigrants. The woods used are another clue. The chairs of this sort made in Federal New York were made almost exclusively out of Mahogany. The Mahogany used as a primary wood in this chair is West Indies Mahogany and is very tight grained, making it an excellent wood for carving. Because of it's fine grain and stoutness, fine detail was achieved in the carving and turnings on the chair. In addition to this, the stoutness of the timber made an excellent choice for a chair with curves in its individual components. A more open grained wood would have been less structurally suited to this type of construction and more apt to break along the grain. By selecting this wood, the cabinetmaker was able to provide a functional chair that also met the design expectations of the day.

The secondary wood seen on the front stretcher is American Ash. This wood was used commonly on these chairs as a secondary wood. While it is possible that a chair could have been made in Scotland using these woods, It is far more likely that another wood, like Beech, would have been used as a secondary wood. The use of Laburnum as a primary wood was also commonly seen on chairs of this type in Scotland.

By looking at the overall design, the carving motifs, and the woods used, I believe that this chair was made in Fereral New York, by a Scottish cabinet maker recently landed on American shores. Beyond that, attribution is difficult. One possible way to find attribution would be to make a tracing of the leg pattern and compare it to attributed examples. Perhaps a template was used more than once and a common shape can be found. Regardless of attribution, one thing is certain. This is a finely executed example of a New York federal scroll back chair that was made with great skill and effort. Below are a few photos of the chair as it came to my shop, some detailing the individual components I spoke of earlier, followed by photos of the restoration.

 These first two photos show the chair from different angles. The left arm had been broken off and the joinery in the seat frame had loosened up over time.

 

 

  These next two photos show the detail of the carved central splat. The design uses carved C-scrolls mixed with foliage. It interesting to speculate that perhaps this chair was made to order, and that Mitchell, being a loyalist in the revolution, would have turned down an eagle or cornucopia motif, both pointing towards the prosperity and strength of the new nation. This is only speculation, but it is a curiosity in light of the chair's history.

 

This photo details the crest rail which displays a piece of crotch Mahogany veneer framed by cock beading. According to Apicella, this design element is a Scottish innovation.

Of added interest were the turned applied discs or buttons that are seen on the termination of the arms and the rear posts. this is lesser seen feature among examples of Federal arm chairs I have viewed, and it certainly completed the design of the chair. The buttons can be seen in the two photos below. The first shows the arm and the second a detail of the rear post.

 

This photo shows the front seat stretcher. The stretcher is Ash. A piece of molded Mahogany is applied to the front and when the upholstered seat frame is attached, the Ash is concealed. The seat frame for this chair was also made from Ash and appeared to be original, although the upholstery was not.

As stated above, the left arm had broken off of the chair as had the post which supports the arm .In the photo below you can see the mortise in the left seat stretcher. The interior shoulder had broken off with the front post when it broke off.

 

To ensure proper alignment of all of the broken sections, the gluing was done in stages. In this photo the joinery on the seat and back are being tightened and various small parts are being glued in place.

 

While that was drying the various broken parts were reconnected to the front post, as seen in the photo below.

There were two missing portions that needed to be patched. To do this I used tight grained Honduran Mahogany. The color was different than the dark West Indies Mahogany, but the grain matched nicely, and the color was addressed later by using stain. Below is one of the patches rough carved in place.

On curiosity was the use of a double tenon in the joinery that connects the arm and the front post. Typically, the tenon would be integral to the post and the mortice would be in the arm. In this case, both components had mortises and a double or floating tenon was fashioned. At first I thought this a repair, but upon closer inspection found that the tenon was made from Ash and appeared to be part of the original construction. Why this was done is a mystery. Perhaps the piece used for the post was not quite long enough to include an integral tenon, or perhaps this was done to add strength to the joint. It is hard to say, but seeing as how the arm broke here, I doubt the tenon was added to strengthen the joint! Here is a photo of the floating tenon.

These next two photos were taken during the finishing process, after all of the repairs were made.

These last few photos show the completed restoration of the chair. The original finish was maintained in this restoration and the results were quite nice. The last photo shows the chair fitted with its seat. The seat has a needlepoint that I think will be recovered by the customer at a later date.

 

Cedar Lawn: French Empire Style Pier Table ( Ca.1980)

The Restored Pier Table

 Another piece I have recently restored for the Cedar Lawn estate in Jefferson County, West Virginia is a pier table made in the style of the French Empire period. I dated it's manufacture to 1980, but it is only a guess at its age. While being a reproduction, this is certainly a good one. The hardware was all nicely detailed and cast well. The primary wood used is Mahogany and good Honduran Mahogany was selected for the piece. The top is made of Poplar, pointing towards American manufacture, which was ebonized. Portion of the columns were also ebonized and gilt with a bronzing powder. The term "Ebonized" refers to staining a piece of wood with black stain to mimic the appearance of Ebony. The look is different from painting, in that the grain of the wood is visible through the black stain and once stained the wood is coated with finish the same as the rest of the piece.

The condition of this piece was pretty good overall, but there was significant damage to the finish on the ebonized top and the Mahogany sections had a cracked and tired finish, the gilt and ebonized portions on the base had flaked off revealing the Mahogany wood beneath. Structurally, the table needed little work and it only had minor cosmetic damage. Here is a photo of the table as it came to me.

Before going on, a little history on the Pier table. A pier table is a table usually placed between two windows. I do not think that the form is found much earlier than the early 19th century, and most are made in the style of French Empire. Many pier tables are made with a large mirror set between the two back legs. An interesting myth cropped up surrounding the use of this mirror which is debunked by another blogger here:

http://clermontstatehistoricsite.blogspot.com/2009/12/mythical-mirrors.html

Now back to the restoration. Below is a photo of the table with  the finish removed and the surface sanded and prepped for a new finish.

The first thing I did was to stain the Mahogany portions of the table, as seen in the two photos below. As stated above the top was made from Poplar and appears very light in these photos.

The next two images show the top after it was ebonized.

This last photo shows the completed piece with the hardware attached and ready for delivery.

Mahogany Secretery Desk (ca.1930)

The Completed Desk

 A piece I recently restored was a secretary desk made by the Northwestern Cabinet Company of  Burlington, Iowa. I believe the desk to have been made sometime around 1930. The Burlington Public Library has put together a webpage detailing the history of some of the furniture manufacturers of that town. An entry on the history of the Northwestern Cabinet Company can be found here. It is the third entry down:

http://www.burlington.lib.ia.us/genealogy/furniture.htm

In addition, while researching this desk I came across a photo taken recently of the factory. A link to that photo can be found here:

 http://iggyz.com/?p=9695

Below is a page from a catalog of the Northwestern Cabinet Company showing an almost identical desk to the one I worked on. The differences I can see are two more drawers inside the desk compartments as well as a slightly more elongated pediment. The original sale price in the catalog was $47.40.

The desk is referred to in the catalog as a "Governor Winthrop" desk. This is a bit of a misnomer as it was named after Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Governor Winthrop lived during the 17th century while the design of this desk reflects a mid to late 18th century taste and would most closely be associated with the Chippendale style. Wikipedia shed some light on the origin of this name, saying that it was first coined in 1924 buy the Winthrop Furniture Company of Boston Massachusetts, who offered the "Gov. Winthrop Desk" during the Colonial revival period in American furniture manufacturing. The use of this term dates the desk I worked on to after 1924 and realistically it was probably made in the 1930's, 1940's, or even as late as the 1950's. Below is a photo of the label on the back of the desk. The name of the manufacturer is seen in the bottom right hand corner of the label.

 

The advertisement above mentions that the desk was originally offered in a Walnut or Mahogany finish. Indeed, the primary wood used in this piece is Birch that has been stained and finished to resemble Mahogany. Birch was commonly used in this fashion because when stained, it has a look similar to Mahogany, and was much less expensive to use since it is a domestic wood. Below is a photo of the desk as it came into my shop. One of the drawer fronts had become loose, the feet were loose and missing portions on the claws, the finial was missing a portion, and the finish needed a cleaning and touch up. In addition, the false dividers for the glass were warped badly as was one of the drawer bottoms. One last piece was that the plating on the hardware had come off , revealing the metal sub layer which was pitted and rusted. The owner and I decided to replace the hardware, as seen later in the post.

This photo shows the top drawer front being glued to the rest of the drawer.

The glue block used to support the finial had become loose. This photo shows the piece being reattached to the back side of the pediment.

As stated above, several portions were missing from the "claws" of the feet. This was due to glue failure and the fact that the feet were not solid, but comprised of several boards glued together. Feet get a lot of abuse from vacuums and feet passing by. This photo shows the patches on two of the feet in a semi-carved state. they were later finished and touched up to match the existing finish.

One of the drawer bottoms had become very warped and was beyond repair. I used the original as a template for the new one. In order to do this I had to clamp the old bottom down to the new in several places in order to get an accurate tracing.This is seen in the photo below.

Below is a photo of the new bottom on the right next to the old drawer bottom on the left. You can see the amount that the old bottom had warped. It had also become delaminated.

Below is a photo of the old hardware on the right next to the new hardware on the left. The new hardware was slightly larger and had a more traditional profile than the old. It was also made from solid brass rather than  brass plated metal.

The old hardware was also pressed as seen below to give it the depth of brass hardware. The next photo shows the back of the new hardware that was flat and not pressed. Overall, the new hardware was a nice addition to the piece.

One last photo of the repairs was gluing down the lamination on the dividers for the windows. You can also see in this photo how warped the divider had become. To deal with this, I reversed the dividers when I put them back in to flatten them against the glass. The next two photos show the completed desk.

Regency Rosewood And Beech Sofa (ca.1820)

The Completed Sofa

A recent piece that I restored was an English sofa made during the Regency period. The sofa was made primarily of Beech and had Brazilian Rosewood veneer inlayed with brass in a process known as Boulle work, named after a French cabinetmaker named Andre Charles Boulle (1642-1732) who specialized in Marquetry and invented the process. The process employed in Boulle work is to layer a sacraficial piece of veneer with a piece of the primary veneer being used and a sheet of contrasting veneer or metal. On top of these layers an image is applied. Using a fine saw, the layers are simultaneously cut through producing a piece of veneer with a positive and negative image as well as a piece of metal or contrasting veneer with a positive and negative image. The image itself is sacrificed in the process and the sacrificial veneer is used to keep the valued veneer from splintering with the force of the saw.  The cabinetmaker is then free to use the veneer as the image and the metal as the groundwork or to use the metal for the image and the veneer for the ground. In fact, pieces can be seen where one image is on the front of the piece and the reverse is on the opposite side. The difference between this and marquetry is that with marquetry, each piece is cut individually to create the image.

During the time when this technique was first developed, examples were seen in silver and tortoise shell. The silver was sometimes also engraved. For most of the 18th century, this practice was out of favor, but it came back into use in the early 19th century in England and can be seen on pieces made during the Regency period. In most of these pieces from the Regency period, brass and Rosewood are used. This is commonly seen in sofas as well as occasional tables and chairs. 

Most of the front facade of the sofa I worked on was covered in Boulle work. Where it was not covered, The primary wood (Beech) was stained and fauxed with India ink to simulate Rosewood. In addition to all of this, the feet were capped with cast brass casters that were extremely ornate and echoed the design of the Boulle work. Below is a photo of the sofa when it entered my shop.    

 The central image on the veneer is seen in the photo below. This was seen in four separate places on the sofa and was probably made all at once. The image is a stylized plant growing around and out of an Urn. The urn is a commonly used symbol in neoclassical furniture forms.

 While walking through a friends garden, I realized that the plant in question was a Poppy plant. Once I looked at the image closely, I could see the seed pod in the center of the image flanked by the serrated leaves. Below is a close up of the seed pod followed by some poppy plants showing their seed pods and serrated leaves.

 

 The piece had some veneer loss as well as some missing brass. In addition to this, the finish was in really rough shape and the joinery in the back and in the feet was loose. One other major problem was that the brass casters had completely seized with corrosion. Below is a close up of one of the casters and the brass inlay held in place with some string.

This photo shows a veneered board that was applied to the skirt of the sofa completely dislodged from the sofa.

The next two photos show some of the brass lifted from the leg.

The many photos that follow show the process of checking for loose veneer or brass, lifting it to clean the old glue beneath it, and clamping it back in place with new hide glue. The hide glue takes about 24 hours to really dry, so there were many clamping sessions that went on for several days.

The photo below shows an area where the brass work was actually missing. The next photo shows that area cleaned of its old glue

On the opposite side of the image was the same piece that was missing in reverse. The piece was lifted so I was able to slide a piece of brass sheet below the original and, using an X-acto knife, trace the image onto the new brass. The image was then cut out and reversed and fit into the area that the brass was missing. The completed image is seen in the last photo. Apologies for the flipped photos in this section, but you get the idea!

This photo shows the brass work and veneer above  being glued in place.

The back of the sofa is a separate frame held in place at the bottom with tenons and at the top with screws. This is to allow the upholsterer to upholster the seat. The joinery on the back of the sofa was very loose. In the photo below you can see the back with each piece marked with blue tape to indicate the orientation and the position of each piece. The back was then disassembled, The glue was cleaned, and the back reassembled. This process is shown below.

Once the repair work was completed, I turned my attention to the finish. The finish was in bad shape and really needed to be stripped. The danger in this was that the Beech wood had been fauxed with India ink and I did not want to loose this. The finish was a shellac based finish and the solvent used was alcohol, so I used alcohol to slowly smooth out the original finish and reverse the damage done to the finish. The result was a finish that was very thin and needed new finish to be added to it. The other result was that the India ink was preserved. One other piece that came out of this was that the finish was removed from the brass and the brass was brightened to contrast the Rosewood. From there it was just a matter of coating the sofa with new finish and waxing it. Here are a few images of  the restored finish before the sofa was sent to the upholsterer.

Below are some photos of the sofa back from the upholsterer. The fabric was gold in color and picked up on the brass quite well. The upholsterer also made Bolster cushions for the sofa, seen in the last photo. The result was a stunning sofa that in my opinion was really worth the effort put into it.